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Gerhard Domagk - Biographical

Gerhard
Johannes Paul Domagk was born on October 30, 1895, at Lagow,
a beautiful, small town in the Brandenburg Marches. Until he was
fourteen he went to school in Sommerfeld, where his father was
assistant headmaster. His mother, Martha Reimer, came from
farming stock in the Marches, where she lived in Sommerfeld until
1945 when she was expelled from her home; she died from
starvation in a refugee camp.

Domagk himself was, from the age of 14, at school in Silesia
until he reached the upper sixth form. He then became a medical
student at Kiel and, when the 1914-1918 War broke out, he served
in the Army, and in December 1914 was wounded. Later he was sent
to join the Sanitary Service and served in, among other places,
the cholera hospitals in Russia. During this time he was
decisively impressed by the helplessness of the medical men of
that time when they were faced with cholera, typhus, diarrhoeal
infections and other infectious diseases. He was especially
strongly influenced by the fact that surgery had little value in
the treatment of these diseases and even amputations and other
forms of radical treatment were often followed by severe
bacterial infections, such as gas gangrene.

In 1918 he resumed his medical studies at Kiel and in 1921 he
took his State Medical Examinations and graduated. He undertook
laboratory work under Max Bürger on creatin and creatinin,
and later metabolic studies and analysis under Professors
Hoppe-Seyler and Emmerich.

In 1923 he moved to Greifswald and there became, in 1924,
University Lecturer in Pathological Anatomy. In 1925 he held the
same post in the University of Münster and in 1958 became
professor of this subject. During the years 1927-1929 he was,
however, given leave of absence from the University of
Münster to do research in the laboratories of the I.G.
Farbenindustrie, at Wuppertal. In 1929 a new research institute
for pathological anatomy and bacteriology was built by the I.G.
Farbenindustrie and there, in 1932, Domagk made the discovery for
which his name is so well known, the discovery that earned him
the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for 1939, namely, the
fact that a red dye-stuff, to which the name «prontosil
rubrum» was given, protected mice and rabbits against lethal
doses of staphylococci and haemolytic streptococci. Prontosil was
a derivative of sulphanilamide
(p-aminobenzenesulphonamide) which the Viennese chemist,
Gelmo, had synthesized in 1908.

Domagk was, however, not satisfied that prontosil, so effective
in mice, would be equally effective in man, but it so happened
that his own daughter became very ill with a streptococcal
infection, and Domagk, in desperation, gave her a dose of
prontosil. She made a complete recovery, but Domagk omitted
mentioning the recovery of his daughter from the report on the
effect of the drug, waiting until 1935 when results were
available from clinicians who had tested the new drug on
patients. During subsequent years much work was done in various
countries on this class of antibacterial compound and some
thousands of derivatives of sulphanilamide have been produced and
tested for their antibacterial properties. Domagk's work has thus
given to medicine, and also to surgery, a whole new series of
weapons that are effective against many infectious
diseases.

The discovery of the antibacterial action of the sulphonamides
was not, however, Domagk's only contribution to chemotherapy. He
also discovered the therapeutic value of the quaternary ammonium
bases and he also extended, in collaboration with Klarer and
Mietzsch, his work on the sulphonamides. Later, he attacked the
problem of the chemotherapy of tuberculosis, developing for this
the thiosemicarbazones (Conteben) and isonicotinic acid hydrazide
(Neoteben). His work has undoubtedly resulted in more effective
control of many infectious diseases which nowadays have lost the
terrors they formerly caused. The supreme aim of chemotherapy is,
in Domagk's opinion, the cure and control of carcinoma and he was
convinced that this will be, in the future, achieved.

Domagk held honorary doctorates of the Universities of Bologna, Münster,
Cordoba,
Lima,
Buenos Aires,
and Giessen. He was made Knight of the Order of Merit in
1952, was awarded the Grand Cross of the Civil Order of Health of
Spain in 1955. Other honours and distinctions bestowed upon him
were: Paul Ehrlich Gold Medal and Paul Ehrlich Prize, University
of Frankfurt (1956); Foreign Member of the British Academy of
Science and of the Royal Society (1959); Honorary Member of the German
Dermatological Society (1960); Japanese Order of Merit of the
Rising Sun (1960).

In 1925 Domagk married Gertrud Strübe. They had three sons
and one daughter.

Retiring to his old university of Münster, when laboratory
work was no longer possible for him, he had devoted himself to
the experimental (chemotherapeutic) study of carcinoma and to the
dissemination of modern knowledge about it among the students and
others interested in it. His recreation was painting.

This autobiography/biography was written
at the time of the award and first
published in the book series Les
Prix Nobel.
It was later edited and republished in Nobel Lectures. To cite this document, always state the source as shown above.